PhD Workshop: Introduction to Entrepreneurship Research

Course Description

Course aims

The aim of this course is to provide participants with a broad overview of both content and process issues central to entrepreneurship research. The course is interactive in nature and demands participants’ preparation and active engagement during and between class sessions.

Knowledge Objectives Participants will be exposed to essential process-related concepts underlying research activity in management / social sciences and explore them in more detail within the context of the field of entrepreneurship. Specific knowledge goals of the course include, but are not restricted to:

• Understanding what makes for a good research question and developing the ability to identify promising research questions for own thesis and further research projects
• Understanding what constitutes an academic conversation in the field of entrepreneurship and identification of key theoretical paradigms in the field – especially as they relate to participants’ own research question field. Accordingly, upon completing this course, participants should have in hand a broad survey of key literature that informs their dissertation-related literature inquiry going forward.
• Ability to understand appropriateness, relevance and possible trade-offs of research methods available for addressing identified research questions.
• Ability to appreciate the intricacies of a solid research design, as they relate to identifying sources of data, collecting and analyzing data, designing questionnaires / interviews, operationalizing key constructs – especially as they relate to the participant’s research question.
• General stronger ability to engage in a research conversation and a key set of skills in advancing own research program during doctoral studies.

Skills Objectives

• Improve diagnostic and analytical skills
• Enhance verbal skills via class and group discussions
• Build up critical thinking and interpretation skills
• Gain confidence in embarking on own thesis writing process

 

Format

The course is designed as a ‘full immersion’ experience. On the one hand, we focus on issues around theory and the process of theorizing, such as the design of the research question, its embedding in an academic conversation, and the dos and don’ts of making theoretical contributions. On the other hand, we focus on the execution of the research question, including research methods and research design. Also, questions around the PhD process and academic careers will be tackled together. By immersing participants in such a “boot-camp” for entrepreneurship research, the intensive experience condensed in 1.5 weeks will have long term pay-offs when it comes to pre-empting many questions and uncertainties that arise during a thesis-writing process. The course is worth 6 ECTS.

 

Audience

Beginning doctoral candidates from all fields of study, who have had limited prior exposure to issues such as general research design and thesis development, with special interest in the entrepreneurship field. Note: the course is mandatory for all TUM ERI doctoral candidates. To ensure quality of discussion, the course is limited to 15 participants.

 

Prerequisites

All participants must prepare draft answers to Assignments #1-#4 for each day of study (see “Class outline”). Per assignment, these answers should comprise 1 page of text (12 pt., Times New Roman, 1’’ margin, single-spaced) to be submitted before the first day of class. During the course, participants will merge the updated drafts into a proposal. Assignment #5 is only due after the course (deadline discussed with your advisors), but you will benefit from reflecting about it before and during the course.

 

Application

All eligible and interested doctoral candidates should send one or two motivation paragraphs (state your current stage, planned progress in your PhD, and research interests) and current CV to Siddharth Vedula, before August 15, 2024 (siddharth.vedula@tum.de).

 

Location

We will meet in person at the Entrepreneurship Research Institute building in Garching (room TBD). Feedback meetings with individual professors may be conducted online (e.g. via zoom) based on availability.

 

Grading

All participants (including those from TUM) will be pass/fail graded based on course participation, presentations given, and proposal handed in. For participants that require an actual grade for this class, please get in touch with us beforehand to discuss modalities. We will attempt to give every participants the opportunity to present on all topics covered (see “Course outline” for presentation schedules and topic). Presentations may happen in groups, and should never be longer than 10 minutes (this will eventually depend on the number of course participants). The proposal is described in Assignment #5 (see “Course outline”).

 

Course logistics, preparation and readings

This course requires participants’ advanced preparation in terms of (1) reading the obligatory readings (list provided at the end of this document) and (2) submitting draft answers to the assignment questions. While an important part of the course experience will consist of participants’ ongoing discovery of the important literature (both in terms of theory and methods), it is essential that all participants are able to start the course with a basic understanding of the field’s development and their own plans. Please note that the course will be demanding: You are required to complete all assigned readings before the beginning of the course and to continuously revise your draft proposal throughout the course. Because of these time-intensive revisions, not all days include content sessions from morning to evenings. Please make use of this extra time.

 

Course Procedures

To make this class a success for everyone, we need you to prepare for class and participate in class. Put concisely: how much you take away from this class and contribute to classmates correlates directly with the effort you put in completing class assignments. We hope that this class will provide you with a highly enjoyable learning process. While this syllabus represents our “classroom contract”, we trust that you will share our belief that we can learn from each other in rich discussions in and outside of the classroom. We will do our best to facilitate an interesting and rounded discussion conducive to a learning environment. At the same time, we expect from you proactive preparation and active participation, with a healthy dose of humor and good spirit. We also appreciate your specific research interests, opinions and constructive feedback, and (within the course structure boundaries), we will do our best to make the class contribute to your learning process. Finally, we find entrepreneurship to be a fascinating field, and are delighted to meet and share ideas with a group of diverse and interesting individuals whose ideas could shape the way our understanding, thinking and knowledge evolves in the future. We hope you find that as exciting as we do.

 

Find more information here.